r.i.p. walter cronkite

it seems like science fiction now, but back in prehistory, when i was a yoof, tv newsmen were actually credible journos -- more so than even print journos are now. they reported on real stories and actually did the legwork. they were newsmen, not entertainers or clowns. in a generation, there won't even be people who remember what a newspaper was, let alone what guys like cronkite and his contemporaries (the ed murrow generation of broadcast journalism) used to put down, and we'll be a more ill-informed polis for it. (i anticipate the wire services will have gone tits up by then, since who's gonna pay for them to keep stringers stationed in karachi and katmandu if no one's willing to pay for content?)